


Here With You

by ohgodmyeyes



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Anidala, Crying, Darth Vader Needs a Hug, F/M, Forgiveness, Grief, Hurt No Comfort, Insecurity, Kissing, Longing, Meditation, Nostalgia, One Shot, Pining, Reconciliation, Regret, Romance, Too good to be true, Unconditional Love, Vaderdala - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 04:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26467282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohgodmyeyes/pseuds/ohgodmyeyes
Summary: Anakin Skywalker's wife is alive, and nothing is going to stop her from loving him as much as she ever did.Or, a young Darth Vader's meditation goes awry in just such a way that it causes him his least favourite kind of pain.
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Darth Vader
Comments: 9
Kudos: 74





	Here With You

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry I've been quiet this week, and also that I only showed back up today to post this when I should be working on a full-length story with a real plot (or, better yet, on something I haven't already finished). I guess this is just symptomatic of my brain recharging its weird little batteries. 
> 
> Anyway, I love Sad Vader, so if you do too, I hope you don't mind this one too much. 
> 
> (And no— I am not out of ideas for second-person stories by any means.)

"I love you, Anakin. Do you know how much I've missed you?"

"However much you've missed me, trust me when I say I've missed you even more."

Padmé smiled. She wasn't about to argue with her husband; not about something like that. This wasn't the time— it had been so long since they had seen one another that nothing right now could possibly have mattered more than simply being together. She was sitting on his lap; she had always used to love sitting on his lap. She'd likely not have appreciated anybody knowing as much; however, nobody had ever _had_ to know how she liked to interact with her husband, because almost nobody had known she had a husband at all.

"I felt as though I'd died until I saw you again." He didn't say aloud that up to now, he'd preferred it that way, too. "How did you find me?" Anakin reached up to touch his wife's face with a single mechanical, leather-clad finger. He was as gentle as he could remember ever having been; he had no desire to hurt her. He'd never, ever wanted to hurt her.

"It doesn't matter, Ani— not now that I'm here." Decidedly, she covered his hand with her own, and pressed it close to her skin. He was so cold, now. Nevertheless, she wanted to show him both that she was real, and that she wasn't about to shatter beneath his touch. Anakin had always been scared; scared of loss, scared of life. Scared of everything, really, and the last thing she wanted was for him to feel that way right now.

His lip trembled, and he drew in a breath. Breathing hurt; even where he sat presently, it always hurt. How was she here? He'd retreated to his meditation chamber following a long conversation with his Master about an upcoming planetary invasion; he'd wanted to try to both rest, and ground himself in preparation for his upcoming mission. He'd never expected to open his eyes, and find the only woman he'd ever loved this way sitting on his lap. She was supposed to be dead— how was she not dead?

"I was told I'd killed you," he said in a hushed tone, "but I never believed it. I felt you; I knew I felt you— and now I know I was right."

Padmé shook her head. "How could I have died, knowing what I know about you? You're a good man; you've always been good. My sweet, little blonde boy from Tatooine. How could I ever have given up on you?" 

She used her free hand to reach out and touch her husband's face, just as he had ventured to touch her's. It was nothing like she remembered it, but she was without a doubt that it belonged to him. That elegant nose, beautiful jaw, and— most of all— those eyes of his: Their hue was irrelevant; she never, _ever_ could have forgotten his eyes. Right now they looked as though they were about to shed tears; however, she was used to that. Anakin had always been prone to tearfulness.

"I'm sorry," he rasped, both because he was resisting the urge to cry, and because of the ceaseless pain in his chest. "I'm sorry for hurting you, and I'm sorry for the way I must look to you now."

She wished he wouldn't be. "You don't need to be sorry. What happened was never your fault." Running her hand carefully over the side of his face, past his ear, and around to the back of his head, she looked him up-and-down, just the way she always used to. He had so many scars— what had happened to him after she'd fallen unconscious on Mustafar? It must have been something on that planet; the one with the smoke, and the flames. Likely, he'd burned. She'd followed him there to get him back; back from the so-called Emperor, but she had failed... or at least, she _thought_ she had failed. 

The way he looked at her now seemed to indicate otherwise.

"I hurt you, Padmé." The tears started to fall; he couldn't have stopped them, not even if he'd tried. They stung his eyes and streamed down his face; over his scars, and onto his armour. He never wore his helmet here, but he always, _always_ wore his armour. He hated his encasement; hated it more than anything, but the bacta tank in his private medical bay was his only respite from it. "How can you still love me after what I did?" he asked. Then, much more quietly, _"After seeing what I've become?"_

With a soft, sad laugh, she answered him, "How could I _not_ love you, Ani? I've _always_ loved you. Everybody makes mistakes." 

Everybody might make mistakes, but Anakin's error had been particularly grievous, and he knew it. He'd always known it. After finding himself in his Master's care following the fight on Mustafar, he had made a firm decision to remain under Palpatine's instruction. He certainly didn't feel powerful enough to overthrow the Emperor, not anymore... and besides that, he had so much to learn: Maybe, he had thought, he could even get his wife back, if he only became strong enough. 

If she was here with him now, then that must have meant he didn't need the Emperor. Maybe he'd never needed the Emperor. 

"What can I do?" he asked. "What can I do to show you how sorry I am? I'll kill him, if that's what it takes," and of course he meant his Master. "You can stay and rule with me, or we can run— I'd run anywhere with you, Padmé; anywhere you wanted to go." He didn't care what happened to himself, now, as long as he was with her. He'd taken her for granted; hadn't realized that the Light inside of her ran deeply enough to reject him for doing the wrong thing. He'd never let that happen again; would fight his own nature for the rest of eternity, if it meant that they could be together. 

He loved her; he loved her more than power, and he loved her more than he'd ever loved himself. She was perfect— how could anybody who was anything less than perfect have put up with him; with the way he loved? Darth Vader had scarcely ever underestimated his own toxicity, and if anyone were willing to overlook it, he knew now that he ought to be grateful... especially if 'anyone' happened to include his wife.

"You don't have to do anything," she said to him. "Not right now. Right now, in this moment, all I want is you." She leaned into him at that, and kissed him; kissed him as she'd always kissed him, stroking the back of his head with her thumb as she did. Padmé had always loved to touch Anakin, and that wasn't about to change simply because he'd been injured. It had never been his appearance which had drawn her in, anyway; he'd been beautiful on their wedding day, and he was beautiful now, too— just different. 

Different wasn't bad.

It felt, to Anakin, as though it had been a very long time since he'd been kissed. He'd not been kissed very often over the course of his life; not really. His mother had kissed him, but he'd left her as a child. Obi-wan had kissed his head occasionally, but that had stopped a long time ago, too. Other than the two of them, only his wife had ever shown him open affection... and, although it certainly hadn't been her fault, she'd never, _ever_ done it nearly enough. 

He'd never felt quite so conscious of the myriad changes his body had undergone since his fall as he did right now. He loved kissing his wife again, but he was tentative; nervous about kissing her back. Nothing about him was as she would have remembered it; from his lips to his face to his mechanical limbs, right on down to the mangled torso hidden by the fearsome facade of his suit. Padmé had once admired his physicality; he knew that. What was he now? A broken husk powered by a computer, and his own darkness.

He certainly couldn't give her what he'd once given her— what he used to absolutely relish giving her.

When their kiss finally broke, he warned her (even though it pained him to do so) because he believed she deserved to know, "I'm... not the man I was when I last saw you, Padmé— I lost more than only my limbs to the fire on that planet."

"I don't care about what you lost, Ani," she reassured him, and she truly didn't. 

"What I mean is that I can't—"

 _"Shh._ Quiet, Anakin. What did I just tell you?" Again, it didn't matter to her what parts of himself he did or didn't have; what he could or couldn't do, now, as her husband. She was already looking at the most important part of him, after all—and he really was precisely as beautiful to her as he'd ever been. Again, he was just _different..._ and Padmé had never, ever minded 'different'.

His hand had fallen from her face to her shoulder by now; a shoulder exposed by the gown she was wearing. It was an elaborate garment; one to whose ornaments and embellishments she paid absolutely no mind as she sat upon her husband.

He was grateful to her for seeming to understand. Before his thoughts could turn to whether she would be frightened or otherwise repelled by the mask he now needed for the purpose of breathing beyond the walls of his chamber, she was kissing him again; touching his face and his head and what she could of his neck, too, as though it weren't gnarled or twisted or irreparably damaged. 

He was not as shy, this time, about kissing her in return: Choking back his own tears, he leaned into her as eagerly as he always had; held her close with those brand-new arms he'd only just re-learned how to use, and fingered her hair tenderly. He could barely feel the strands through his gloves, but that didn't matter to him right now: He was actually, _physically_ , touching his wife— something he never thought he'd get to do again. 

He moved to kiss her neck, because she'd always appreciated him kissing her neck; as he did, he took one of his hands from around her and brought it between the two of them instead. As he rested it on the firm, round protrusion of her very pregnant belly, he asked into her ear, "What about the baby?" He was ashamed, now, at the lack of regard he'd shown for his child when he'd hurt his wife. He hoped she could forgive him for that as well. 

"What about it, Ani?" she asked back, seeming not to understand what he meant.

"Is it... safe?" he asked, hoping to clarify. "Is it alright?"

She pulled back so that he could see her face, and she smiled broadly at him. "Of course it is— as safe as can be," she said, placing her own hand atop his on her stomach, to his immense relief.

After that, Darth Vader snapped out of his meditative fugue, and his wife was gone. Confronted by the illogic that her pregnancy would have been long-over by now had she actually appeared before him, his mind's image of her had ceased to be sustainable... and, of course, she had disappeared.

He murmured her name first; after that, he said it just a bit more loudly. When he looked around through the blur of his lingering tears at the stark-white reality of his barren chamber and realized that she had never truly been there, he almost rose to his feet for the sole purpose of destroying it as he shouted uselessly for her to come back. Rage welled up inside of him; threatened to burst forth unreservedly in a way to which he'd become unaccustomed: A Sith Lord was to practise control at all times; complete and total control.

When it occurred to him that a lack of self-regulation was what had caused him to conjure such a realistic vision of her in the first place, he grew angrier still— this was his fault; _everything_ was his fault, and he hated himself for it now more than he ever had.

He almost screamed; however, to scream would only have caused him further pain... so instead, he said to himself unflinchingly, "Quiet, fool— you did this to yourself."

He did rise to his feet at that point, but he did not ignite his sabre, nor did he swing his arms about wildly like a madman. There'd have been no point, and one thing Darth Vader had learned since embarking on his journey toward being a Dark Lord of the Sith was that to perform actions without a clear reason was nothing more than an expression of stupidity. He resolved, then, to be more cautious with regard to his meditative practices, because his strength of mind was useless if its power to conjure could not be controlled.

As he stood alone, he allowed the complex mechanism inside of the chamber to meet him; replace his mask upon his face. He had no need to worry about the manner in which his wife might react to it, of course, because his wife was dead.

Dead because he had killed her.

Vader's thoughts turned next to the conversation he'd had with his Master prior to coming here; prior to sitting alone with his musings— prior to fooling himself. They were to take a planet within a few days' time; a large one, populous and urban. Such events almost invariably produced a mass of casualties; ones to which the man formerly known as Anakin Skywalker was typically indifferent.

This time, though, he found himself looking forward to the killing; to the smoke and blood and frightened, screaming men and women. After all, if he'd had to suffer the loss of the person he had loved the most, why should he be alone in his pain? It wasn't unique; no pain was unique. 

He felt ashamed of himself for having allowed his mind to be carried off in such a wistful, careless fashion. A better use of his grief and rage, he knew, would be to bring yet another part of the galaxy under his control; make it a part of the Emperor's ever-expanding dominion. 

What better way was there to honour a woman whose life had been dedicated to helping people get along? 

With that thought solidly in mind, he exited the chamber, and went off to see just how near he was to his destination... and the graciously intrusive bloodshed that would almost certainly come with his having reached it. 

He put his memories away, because he knew they did nothing to serve him.


End file.
